Following board refusal to step down, Westminster residents continue fight

The Westminster Civic Association board ignored residents’ pleas during the association’s annual meeting Tuesday evening, dismissing a petition signed by some 80 households calling for the board members’ removal.

Westminster residents said the annual meeting was a packed house with likely over 100 people in attendance at the meeting held at McKean High School in Mill Creek.

The volunteer board on Tuesday refused to put a motion on the floor to vote the leadership out, dodged questions from residents and didn’t provide budget figures before voting on the civic association’s annual budget, according to the community’s residents.

Cheltenham Road resident Buddy West, who is among a group of concerned neighbors pushing for the current board’s removal, said a motion was made and seconded during the board meeting Tuesday, but the leadership refused to bring the motion to a vote.

“We stood up and said we had the forms here with 82 names on it requesting that they leave and they turned around and said they don’t recognize the petition,” he said. The board “approved the budget” without any specific figures and refused to answer “any of the questions we asked.”

Neighbors who have banded together on the issue said Wednesday that they are still trying to comprehend what transpired at Tuesday night’s meeting, but intend to file complaints with Delaware’s Common Interest Community Ombudsman Chris Curtin.

BACKGROUND: Tensions mounting in this Hockessin area neighborhood amid clashes with civic association

When Delaware Online/The News Journal contacted Curtin in early April, he said that a complaint "may have been filed," which precluded him from speaking about the community in case he is called to mediate the matter. A spokesperson for the state Department of Justice said Wednesday it had not received a complaint.

Individual residents who have had issues with the civic association board’s actions have also contemplated filing civil suits.

How did we get here?

Prospective buyers and real estate agents shared stories of board President Michael “Sherm” Porter contacting buyers before purchase, scaring off the buyer. In another instance, the seller of a home had to lower the price to keep a buyer after Porter contacted them.

Homeowners in the Mill Creek neighborhood described being harassed by board members on other occasions, at times outside the community, and an overall hostile environment in the community. Others have been denied the ability to build a fence even when requesting it for reasonable accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

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The board has “no regard for how rules and regulations work. The president determines whether or not you can have a fence, based on his whim,” West said. “Most of what went on in that meeting ran counter to homeowner documents.”

The dispute among board members and residents centers on the contents of the Westminster community’s governing documents and actions taken by the board, which include changes to the community’s bylaws filed with New Castle County on Sept. 5, 2023.

The board characterized these changes as “clarifications” and claimed that the bylaws haven’t changed since 1990, but documents recorded with New Castle County last year counter that claim.

The revisions make it even more difficult for a homeowner to build a fence; require “detailed architecture plans” for sheds and additions that the board must then approve; institute fines for residents not following the rules; and stipulate that for driveways, “parking of boats, trailers, RVs, and vehicles that are not in proper working condition or are in a state of disrepair is strictly prohibited.”

The 1990 bylaw documents include nothing of RVs, boats, or trailers, nor do they contemplate anything regarding driveways. It also doesn’t say anything about sheds or additions to the home. It primarily focused on empowering the board to pursue traffic enforcement within the community by prohibiting unregistered motor vehicles, preventing people from parking on the streets long-term or on hills and curves, and enforcing a 25 mph speed limit.

According to the Westminster Civic Association’s governing documents, any member of the civic association can propose amendments to the bylaws at “any meeting of the Board of Directors or any official meeting of the membership."

“If the proposal is approved by a majority of the members voting at that meeting, the proposal shall then be submitted to all members of the corporation by mail,” the community’s 1990 bylaws read. “Bylaws will stand amended if, at the end of 20 days from the date the proposal was mailed, affirmative votes have been received from a majority of members eligible to vote.”

Read the community's latest governing documents

The Westminster Civic Association bylaws and restrictions by Mandy on Scribd

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Westminster Civic Association board refuses to step down